Finding a Middle Way to Sustainable Food Systems

Abstract

First paragraphs:

The premise of Susan Futrell’s Good Apples: Behind Every Bite is that by understanding the environmental, social, and economic issues affect­ing apples growers in America, the reader can better appreciate and support sustainable food systems. Futrell’s storytelling is grounded in her years of experience working in sustainable food distribution, which includes 25 years in sales and marketing for a cooperatively owned natural food distributor called Blooming Prairie Warehouse in the Midwest, and her current work with Red Tomato, a small nonprofit food hub based in Massachusetts, where she helped develop the Eco Apple® program.

From the beginning, Futrell resists the pressure to simplify and dichotomize complexities. Chapter 1, At the Intersection of Apples and Local, establishes this tone with her contextual consideration of how the term local is defined. Chapter 2, Immigrant Apples, reviews the history of apples in America. In it she discusses key historical figures and the emer­gence of seedling nurseries, apple varieties, grow­ers’ associations, and land-grant institutions. . . .

Author Biography

Danielle Robinson, University of Guelph; Okanagan College

Ph.D. candidate, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph; teaches at Okanagan College

The copyright to all content published in JAFSCD belongs to the author(s). It is licensed as CC BY 4.0. This license determines how you may reprint, copy, distribute, or otherwise share JAFSCD content.

FEATURED JAFSCD SHAREHOLDER

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Center for Regional Food Studies at the University of Arizona

The mission of the Center for Regional Food Studies at the University of Arizona is to integrate social, behavioral, and life sciences into interdisciplinary studies and community dialogue regarding change in regional food systems. We involve students and faculty in the design, implementation, and evaluation of pilot interventions and participatory community-based research in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands foodshed surrounding Tucson, a UNESCO-designated City of Gastronomy, in a manner that can be replicated, scaled up, and applied to other regions globally.

2019 Shareholder Commentary:Cultivating a Network of Citizen-Scientists to Track Change in the Sonora-Arizona Foodshed (forthcoming)

Example of Programming:

Reimagining Community Cultural Identity, Monday, April 1, 2019

Public Lecture by Carlton Turner, Lead Artist/Director of Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture)

In this talk, Carlton Turner will use the work of Sipp Culture as a framework for how rural communities are grappling with reimagining their cultural identity in the wake of systems consolidation (in educational, medical, and food systems) and expansion of the digital divide across race and class lines.

Carlton Turner works across the country as a performing artist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. He is the founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture), which uses arts and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi.

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Why are we a shareholder of JAFSCD? It’s simple. The Center for Environmental Farming Systems and NC State Extension share the same goals as JAFSCD in promoting research-based strategies that simultaneously minimize food insecurity and farm loss and maximize community resilience.

—Dr. Nancy Creamer, Director, Center for Environmental Farming Systems, North Carolina State University

The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development is published by the Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems, a project of the Center for Transformative Action (a nonprofit affiliate of Cornell University). JAFSCD is published with the support of these shareholding partners: